British doomsday prepper spends £6,000 on tinned food and power banks to last 25 years

British people are advised to stock emergency supplies to survive extreme events, but one dad has taken it a step further.

If doomsday prepping was an artform, Brian Forbes, 52, would be a master.

The dad from Scotland has dished out £6,000 this year alone to prepare for a possible disaster looming around the corner.

The experienced prepper has filled two family shelters with hundreds of tins, power banks, night vision goggles, walkie talkies, battery operated radios and headtorches – enough to last 25 years.

Brian, an engineer surveyor, said: ‘The spending has gone up this year, because I perceive the risk as higher.

‘We have a lot of risk, like a crumbling power grid and water shortages. 40,000 people were on bottled water for a month this year.

‘These are things you can prep for.

‘I’ve probably spent around £6,000 so far this year. I’ve spent around £2,500 on freeze dry foods, £2,000 on power banks, £500 on a new generator.’

He assured that the night vision goggles ‘are not for hunting people,’ but a fallback in the case of power cuts as torches are not needed.

While his self-made sheds are kitted with its own solar panels, air conditioning and power supply, Brian wished he had ‘bunker money.’

While his wife Donna is on board with the lifestyle and now splits the prepping bill with him, their three children, aged 15, 27 and 29, are not.

But it was the lack of supplies for his children during a particularly savage winter storm in 2010 that prompted him to begin stockpiling in the first place.

The family, living between Glasgow and Stirling, were not prepaped for the conditions, which gridlocked roads, stopped deliveries and shut schools.

After trekking a a mile to the local supermarket, he found that staff hadn’t turned up and queues stretched through the shop, with tensions flaring up among shoppers.

‘My children were young at the time and things were running out, like milk, cereal bread,’ Brian, who is part of the UK Preppers Club movement, said.

He continued: ‘I felt bad that my kids didn’t have a lot in the house. I decided from then it would be a good idea to stock up on unplanned emergency.’

But his children think their dad is ‘nuts, dad’s crazy, he’s lost his marbles,’ Brian said.

‘They go to great lengths to tell me why I’m wrong – I may well be wrong but it’s ultimately my money and time,’ he said.

For anyone interested in disaster prepping but not sure where to start, Brian had a handy tip: his tactic was to add to his supplies little and often.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the family had enough food for three months, which spared them several shopping trips during the height of the public health crisis.

Now his main stress is a possibly crumbling power grid, put under extra pressure from electric cars, lorries and heat pumps.

Global conflicts, which have raged every year since throughout Brian’s life, can easly ‘be our problem too,’ he said, adding that increase in fuel and threats to crops due to extreme weather is also possible threat.

Being prepared for unexpected events and crisis is not just talk within the niches of the prepping community.

Sweden and Finland have issued updated handbooks in the events of conflict, disasters or anything that could hamper the usual supply chain and essential functions of society, giving practical advise on resilience.

And the UK government is planning to revive the War Book, which was first issued throughout the world wars and the Cold War.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Comment now

Comments

Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google

Add as preferred source